Rhetoric of an Image

Richard Prince

Richard Prince’s work is seen to be very controversial, as he re-photographs’ images of adverts that already exists in magazines, images that aren’t his own. The way in which he photographs them is independent from any text or slogans that may have surrounded the image initially and presents the images as pieces of artwork rather than advertisements. He presents to us a whole novel way of viewing the image, with no influences from text telling us what we should think or how we should feel, were merely view the photograph as an image that stands alone in its own right.

Richard princes’ argument is that if we know something is an advertising image we begin to view it with a certain type of mind set, maybe it is with the mindset that we refuse to be drawn in by the advert or maybe we view it with the mindset that we have to have the product and become susceptible to what the advert is offering us.

So does it matter on in which context we view the same image, Prince would argue that it is all about the context in which we are given an image. This image by Prince is a retaken Marlboro advert from 1954. Prince is making a comment on society and how the advertising industry use imagery and play of what society’s ideals are to draw people into a certain product. The photographs of the cowboys depict that stereotypical American dream and conger up notions of masculinity and freedom. However do they still say the same thing when the product is removed? When the cigarettes are taken out of the equation there isn’t that link from product to consumer that offers the lifestyle being depicted in the image. So is the image still the same? By re-photographing it and bringing it into a different context; instead of a magazine on a wall in a gallery space. We begin to view it as an art piece instead of the advert telling us what we think of the image and what we should feel about the product it is selling we now need to view the image in the context of our own views and life experiences. One could almost say the image has been set free by Prince so that the viewer can make their own minds up of what the image represents.